carefulest
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Posts posted by carefulest
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Hi all,
I bought 6 pygmy cories and an oto today. They looked good at the store and I took them out of the bag and drip acclimated them (control valve method) for 3 hours and then emptied them into a quarantine tub with dechlorinated tap water at room temperature.
When they got to the tub they mostly hid behind the filter or next to a rock. A few hours later the cories all died. They would swim around then all of a sudden hang listlessly upside down. After another few hours they started to smell bad so I could tell they were really dead.
The oto seems to be stressed but otherwise OK.
Has this kind of thing happened to anyone else? What could this be?
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The rotala was grown emersed and the stems did not support their own weight. You can see the new submerged growth is straight and healthy.
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They look like Anubias nana to me, usually on the tube they mark which one it is with a marker.
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Following! Excited to see where this goes.
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On 10/4/2021 at 3:10 AM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:
I have 35 of my homegrown Otos in a 10 gallon. As you might imagine there's no short algae to be found anywhere (there's some hair algae that grows on the swords in there. I feed them Hikari Algae wafers (they were raised on them) and English cucumber (they have hated everything else I've tried). They can be picky eaters.
I just fed them spinach successfully. Everyone liked it! I think I'll take the cucumber hint, I'm a bit worried about the anti-nutrients in feeding too much spinach. This is a pretty fun aspect of oto-keeping, I'll make a video about it if people are interested.
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It's really hard to study and I don't think that people have done that many experiments. Personally I think it's really a thing with significant impacts. I'm guessing it's why plants sometimes don't do well in one tank but if moved to another tank with the same tap water, light, substrate, etc. they can thrive (or vice versa). Walstad's book talks about allelopathy with some examples, notably water lilies (Nymphaea) were found to produce a lot of these chemicals.
In my tanks I haven't observed any noticeable effects from this. But I'm mindful to try to plant species in clumps to reduce the possibility. Probably most plants we use --- many which grow together in large masses in nature --- are not allelopathic against their own species.
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Visible algae cleared from glass and plants:
Got this new Hydrocotyle pad too:
Why do my pictures keep coming in upside down?
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I had the same thing on one of my CPDs except worse. I isolated it and within one week she made a full recovery. In that case it was an injury, as there was another spot on the head which had a wound.
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Looks amazing. Cabomba in the past was considered to be somewhat difficult; it's fallen out of favor now. The replacement is Limnophila sessiliflora which is supposed to be extremely easy. I've never used it so this is not from first-hand experience.
EDIT: perhaps a bit too easy, as it's illegal in California where I live. I'm not sure if it's available for you.
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I've pretty much had the water level all the way up to the soil level since it started. I was worried about the tissue culture plants transitioning/drying out. For the first few weeks I had everything under a cover (one of those plastic gardening dishes) but now I just leave it open. It's been off for about two weeks now and I'm just starting to notice emersed form growth: prior to this things mostly grew in submerged form despite having the leaves and stems above the water.
I think entering the AGA contest would be a good idea. I feel like there's a lot of territory here that's not been fully explored.
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Sounds like Hydrocotyle leucocephala (EDIT: or H. verticillata)
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Is that BBA on the wood?
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I actually have a very similar kind of setup going right now. Glossostigma is taking over but a few other petco tissue cultures are doing well. Your plant choice is really interesting, I especially like the little Pogostemons in there.
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One day of otos, before and after:
Don't know why that picture is upside down, I can't fix it even if I rotate it before uploading. Maybe a moderator can help?
Otos are fun to watch and seem to do a good job. Excited to see things grow in a bit.
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Welcome! You might want to put this in the photos, videos, and journal section too.
You should look up aquariums online for inspiration. In my mind the best plants to get for low maintenance are tissue culture cryptocorynes. These can be found easily even at big box retailers. They have basically a 100% success rate for me and look great. If you're in Socal I can get you trimmings of stem plants later as well.
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Yeah, it's normal for the decaying food to look like that.
Hillstream loaches have different requirements than the other fish so I might consider a different stocking choice.
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Otos and anubias added.
I went to unnamed big box store randomly to look at guinea pigs with my daughter. I was really surprised to see some excellent looking otos:
But I didn't feel comfortable pulling the trigger when the rest of the tank looked like this:
I thought about fish TB and all those other horrible diseases and decided to find another source, even if the price was more expensive and there was no guarantee. Would you have bought these?
Luckily here in South Bay LA there is an aquarium store that I really trust, and most of my stuff comes from there. I made a trip and got some otos as well as nice potted anubias advertised to be snail free.
I used drip acclimation for 2 hours and then dumped in the bag of water. The otos knew what to do:
Later I realized that if they were using medications in the tank at the store then it could be trouble for my shrimp, since I did dump in the store water, but I called and confirmed that they weren't using anything in the oto tank.
So as a takeaway for this entry, I'd like to show my appreciation for all the LFSs that make the aquarium hobby possible. And Aquarium Coop which is doing this on a larger scale, in fact my little store has Cory's videos playing in the background on the TV sometimes.
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Sometimes anubias does this, the rhizomes look pretty healthy so there's hope. How's everything attached to the wood?
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Nice start, banana plant growing really well.
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I dug up all the plants to rearrange the aquascape. The hydrocotyle hasn't been doing much above the substrate but there is some new growth below!
Here's a picture before adding the new otos and anubias. Yeah, it's kind of sad that the beautiful plants got covered by a bit of algae. But after adding the otos and plants perhaps it will clear up. If not, then I'll dial back the photoperiod.
It was horrible trying to get the Java ferns to attach to the wood. I was able to cram a few of them in there and then I had to tie two of them on with string. I got like 20 rhizomes from my friend though, so I just threw the rest into the wabi kusa bowl.
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It's just pure Fluval Stratum, one 8.8 pound bag.
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On 10/3/2021 at 3:24 AM, Guppysnail said:
I have done a somewhat similar shrimp snail algae eater tank. I loved it the only thing was the microfauna became incredibly over abundant. Once your shrimp colony is established and thriving with several generations you can keep other fish.
Did you have otocinclus as well? I actually had a CPD who got injured somehow and I isolated her in this tank last week. I didn't feed at all but she seemed to get fat off of detritus worms. She healed really quickly and I put her back in the other tank.
I was really busy this weekend and didn't have much time to go to fish stores. But I sat down tonight and finished the scape. I ended up not using the Pogostemon helferi. There was an overwhelming amount of Staurogyne in the bag so I was able to fill the whole tank with it. I might try to give the TC cup back to the LFS or try to sell it somehow.
Tomorrow I'm going to get the otos and some Anubias. I'll update with pictures of the build then.
Fish died shortly after taking home
in Diseases
Posted
Yeah I saw a video of Irene where this happened as well. But she lost hers over the course of a week or more whereas all mine happened within a few hours. I wonder if it could be that mythical cory poisoning?
Probably won't try again with this species. Really sad.